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The sheep shearer statue in Te Kuiti, New Zealand. (Photo: Dramatic/CC BY-SA 4.0)
If you flip a sheep onto its backside, balancing it upright with your legs, the usually skittish animal will become surprisingly placid. The reasons for this postural pacification are not well understood. Some put it down to tonic immobility, a natural state of paralysis caused by fear, but whether it is terror or boredom or something else entirely, this seated docility allows the sheep to be sheared much more easily than if it was standing.read more

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